The Power of Local Pages in Childcare Marketing
Child Development Schools (CDS) operates three early childhood education brands, Childcare Network, Sunrise Preschools, and My Small Wonders, serving more than 30,000 children across 260+ centers in 11 states. This wide distribution of local child care centers creates a unique challenge for the marketing team: ensuring each location is represented by a specific page that is optimized to meet search behaviors and user needs in each specific locality.
The team knew each center’s webpage was the first opportunity to impress parents and outrank the local competition for childcare related search terms – but they weren’t having the impact the team expected. For a business built on trust, accessibility, and community relationships each center’s local page is essential.
CDS faced a common challenge for multi-location organizations: local pages that were hard to manage, slow to update, and failed to reflect the unique character of each school.
The Challenge: Fragmented Local Digital Presence
CDS had invested in local pages for all 260 of its childcare centers across the United States. However, their location pages lacked structured, engaging content tailored to parents’ needs. CDS had also put some work into their SEO strategy, but the team lacked the expertise to implement best practices across the SEO spectrum – resulting in lower visibility in “daycare near me” searches. Lastly, the page structure lacked scalability due to inconsistent data quality and hard-to-update page templates.
Prior to partnering with Arc4, CDS had tried multiple platforms to manage its location data and digital experience but was consistently met with operational frustrations. Manual listing management, a lean internal team, and inconsistent support from partners led to inaccurate information and time-consuming updates.
“With (our previous partner), we had frequent turnover in our assigned account managers. Each transition disrupted momentum, delayed projects, and required us to repeatedly realign roadmaps and retrain new contacts. Communication became inconsistent, hours went underutilized, and projects drug on for several months.”
Inconsistent branding, inaccurate hours, and unreliable school transportation information on local pages were causing parent confusion and undermining first impressions.
Before Implementation:
- Low visibility for branded and unbranded search terms.
- Limited engagement, with few form submissions or calls.
- Inefficient workflows: frequent escalations and manual updates for basic changes.
- No centralized source of truth, resulting in inconsistent information across platforms.
The Solution: A Phased, Scalable Local Page Strategy
When CDS selected Yext after challenges with other platforms, they didn’t just need a tool; they needed a repeatable and scalable strategic process. With Arc4 as a partner, they reimagined how local pages could serve not only as an information hub, but as living digital welcome page for each school.
“We chose to approach this project in phases because it allowed us to be intentional—focusing first on building a strong foundation, then layering in additional elements based on priority and impact,” Quattlebaum said.
CDS and Arc4 worked together to put this vision into practice:
Phase 1: Revamping Local Pages for Visibility & User Engagement
Structured data for improved search presence
Technical SEO was prioritized from the start, with backend enhancements like structured data to increase visibility in search results. This foundational work ensured accurate indexing and alignment with local SEO best practices.
NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and Hours consistency across all directories
Yext was used to centralize and streamline NAP data, eliminating inconsistencies across directories and serving as a single source of truth for all 260+ locations. This was especially critical after past experiences with platforms that made it difficult to manage urgent updates.
Integration of local pages with Google Business Profiles, driving more calls and visits
Yext’s integration supported real-time syncing with Google Business Profiles. This ensured alignment between each center’s local page and their profile, improving visibility and reducing duplicate work for the internal team.
Phase 2: Localized & Event Based Content
Implemented localized keyword strategies tailored to parental search behavior
Arc4’s strategic SEO roadmap introduced keyword planning grounded in real search intent. Research included seasonal demand trends, parent-facing language, and competitive gaps, leading to tailored content and improved ranking for high-intent queries.
Created dynamic content updates based on school events, seasonal enrollments, and parent testimonials
Content blocks were built around real-time events – such as open houses or summer programs – with location-level targeting. The team also added:
- Featured events sections linked to each center
- Dynamic blog feeds surfaced per location
- Carousel galleries for school photos
These updates not only kept content fresh but helped align marketing more closely with enrollment goals.
Phase 3: Optimizing UX for Conversion & Trust
Improved Website UX and content (adding unique facility details, testimonials, and enrollment CTAs)
Upgrading the overall website from a custom WordPress configuration to the Elementor Pro editor enabled more agile updates to local pages, with editable templates for each location. Enhancements included:
- Unique details about transportation, hours, and programs
- Parent testimonials that build trust
- Persistent, editable CTAs (e.g., schedule a tour and learn more) added as modular content blocks.
This reduced friction in the user journey and equipped families to take informed action more quickly.
The Results: Data-Driven Proof of Success
SEO & Visibility Gains
- Branded search impressions increased more than 7,000% year over year.
- Unbranded search impressions grew by nearly 1,400% year over year and more than 150% since January 2025.
- Total clicks to CDS websites increased by more than 95% since the beginning of 2025.
- Google Search Clicks, across search and maps, increased by a combined near 200% since July 2024.
Engagement Improvements
- CDS and it’s branded sites were optimized for mobile performance, as 80% of their traffic comes from phone searches, reducing bounce rates and increasing tour conversions
- Form submissions increased significantly post-CTA optimization.
Operational Efficiencies
- Additionally, the new templated format reduced the time to create/edit pages to as little as 15 minutes.
- In-house teams can now manage updates without external Software Developer support.
- Clearer tracking of page performance leads to data-driven decision-making.
The Future: What’s Next for CDS?
At the core of CDS’ digital evolution is a structured roadmap that upgrades the website’s infrastructure, enhances local engagement, and integrates smarter, scalable tools.
CDS is adding dynamic landing pages for program affordability, extracurricular programs and events, and improved multilingual support – particularly for Spanish-speaking families.
Arc4 will provide the CDS team with a robust SEO strategy, led by expert consultation, to tie these elements together to increase visibility and ensure the digital presence reflects both trust and accessibility.
By year’s end, CDS aims to not only streamline content management and search-ability, but also lay the foundation for deeper personalization, improved user journeys, and a more strategic web presence that aligns with its long-term growth and community impact goals
Final Takeaway:
Websites and local pages are not just static assets – they are dynamic, evolving tools that, when optimized and maintained, drive real business growth.
